Sam Winchester, Self-Loathing Extraordinaire (featuring Dean)
by The McQuaid Brothers
Summary: Set in season 9 "Road Trip". It's been 2 weeks since Dean has separated from Sam and Castiel, and suddenly one night Cas appears in the Impala (again...), bearing bad news about his little brother. Sam seems to have shot himself and is dead...or is he? And what will Dean and Cas make of it when they see the body? (Lucifer's back) (Metetron also featured) (p.s. they're in cahoots)
1. Chapter 1

It was two weeks after Dean's confession to his brother that he got back on the road again. Alone. This was not the first time he had driven the car without its usual passenger, but that still didn't change the fact that Dean was uncomfortable with the idea. In fact, at times, he would catch himself turning his head and beginning to talk to his absent brother.

Since his recent departure he had entered a state of self-loathing. Albeit, one that he made a habit of slipping into. But there was one thing that always kept his mind busy, one thing that made him forget about everything else and focus on the goal in front of him. Hunting. This information was not a secret, at least, not to his brother.

Stepping harder on the gas pedal, Dean sped down the open road. Free to drive away at his heart's content with the lack of cars in front of him. That is, until a certain angel showed up.

"Dean," Cas said. Dean flinched. No way would he ever get used to that.

"How did you find me?" He asked, "I thought I was disguised or something."

Cas didn't answer.

Dean looked to his right and expected to see the angel absently staring off into the distance, as usual. Instead, his head was in his hands.

"Cas, what's wrong?"

He only shook his head as a reply, before finally looking up, seemingly exasperated.

"I don't know what happened, Dean. I thought I healed him, I thought he was okay. He wouldn't have done that if he were fine. Not after what I said to him, not after what he said to me. Did something go wrong? Did I fail? He was my friend, he wouldn't have done that if he were my friend. Maybe-"

It was at this point that Cas was rambling. He was shaking his head as he spoke, ranting incoherent sentences that Dean could hardly string together.

"Cas, what is going on?" Dean demanded, interrupting him. His stern tone brought Cas to attention.

Cas looked up, his face contorted with a certain pain and confusion that Dean had never seen before.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"Cas, if you don't tell me what the hell is going on-"

"Sam's gone."

He kept his head down, not daring to elaborate. Dean sighed and laid back, keeping one arm on the steering wheel and the other spread across the seat.

"Alright, where'd he disappear off to this time?" Dean said, showing vexation. Despite being annoyed at his brother's apparent desertion, he was a little worried too.

"No, Dean," Cas said, still refusing to face him, "He's gone. He-he shot himself."

Dean saw Cas look up just then and face him, and it was then that Dean knew. Just by looking in his eyes. Sam was really, truly, dead. There was no bringing him back.

He pulled over to the side of the road.

"Take me to him," Dean said. Cas was confused.

"Dean, I said he was-"

"I know, just take me to him. Now."

Cas did as he was told, and placed a hand on his shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

They arrived a few seconds later at the bunker. All was still and silent, nothing seemed to be out of place.

"Where is he?" Dean said. As he spoke his eyes wandered around the room, finally resting upon a table filled with various tools, a bowl, and a used syringe. Although he was curious about these things, none of it mattered compared to Sam.

As soon as Dean asked the question, Cas's eyes flicked upstairs to Sam's "bedroom". Dean made his way up the stairs as fast as he could, but as he approached the room, his step became more cautious.

Sam was sprawled on the floor when Dean walked in. All Dean could see behind the bed was an arm and the top of his head, blood soaking his hair. Lifeless, as far as he could tell. As he approached, his heart rate increased and a strange feeling in his stomach occurred. Like someone had grabbed a fistful of guts and organs and anything they could find and ripped it right out of him, leaving a gaping hole. This was not the first time Sam had made him feel this way.

Sam eye's were wide open. Glazed over and unseeing. He was nothing but a corpse now, just a thing to be buried in the ground and forgotten. Blood was still dripping out of the hole in the back of his head.

By this time now, Dean's eyes were more than watering. He was in disbelief.

"Sammy?" He said. He shook his shoulder. Nothing would happen. Sam wouldn't magically come back to life, and Dean knew it too. But it didn't seem right not to try. Even if it meant nothing, even if it didn't change anything. He couldn't abandon his little brother, not when he had fought so hard to save him.

A creak in the floor made him turn around, where he saw Cas standing in the doorway. This gave Dean hope, revelation.

"Can't you fix him? You're an angel, you can touch him or whatever and he'll be good as new!"

"I'm sorry, Dean. I can't"

"You fix me all the time! Lucifer snapped Bobby's neck and you healed him in an instant!"

"This is different," As Cas talked he no longer focused on Dean, but on what had been Sam. Gazing and racking his brain to find out what he did wrong. Here had been a soul, a bright yet dismal oddity, that had been filled with purpose and a desire. Gone in a flash. Sam had told Cas he understood it was wrong to run towards death, even for a greater good. But he lied. He ensnared it and brought it down upon himself.

"I-I can't heal people who...who choose to do this to themselves. Just like an angel can only possess a human with permission, I can't heal someone if they choose to damn themselves to hell."

"Wait, he's in hell? He went to hell for this?"

"Taking one's life is a sin, one worthy of damnation. Thou shall not kill. Which happens to include yourself as well."

This, of course, only served to increase Dean's angst. His brother was upset enough to shoot himself, just to get away, and instead of relief he only got a worse hell than what he was living in. He fought to look away.

"There's-there's got to be something we can do."

But Cas didn't respond. He didn't move, he didn't blink. Because at the time he was witnessing a miracle, or thought he was. And when Dean turned his attention back to Sam, he thought so too.

**WHEN CAS FIRST HEARD THE SOUND OF THE GUNSHOT AND SAW SAM, HE PANICKED AND WENT STRAIGHT TO DEAN IN SECONDS. INTERPRET THAT HOW YOU WILL :)**

**SOOO...SHOULD I GO ON?**


	3. Chapter 3

Slowly, the blood pooling from the back of Sam's head began to recede, and the wound started to heal. Dean sat back against the bed in disbelief.

"What-what's happening, are you doing this?"

Cas didn't take his eyes off Sam, but responded with a shake of his head.

"This isn't me," He said.

So, with no answers. Dean and Cas just had to wait.

When all the blood had disappeared, and there wasn't a mark left on him...

Nothing happened.

"Sammy?" Dean questioned tentatively. He stood up, with his hands on the back of his head, and paced the room.

"I just don't get it, Cas. What the _hell _is going on?"

"Dean."

"What?" He turned around to find a conscious Sam, standing up and faced towards them. He was looking down at his hands, examining the backs and palms. Then, with a grin, he stretched his arms and back. Letting out a harmonious laugh.

"Miss me?" He asked. Dean was befuddled.

"Sammy?" Dean asked again.

"Sorry, it's not Sammy anymore."

Dean turned to face Cas, who squinted and tilted his head, before visibly coming to a conclusion.

"Lucifer," Cas said, glaring. Dean took a step back.

"Lucifer? Lucifer's an angel."

Sam smiled, although Dean's attention was on Cas.

"Yes, he is," Cas confirmed.

When he didn't continue, Dean spoke again.

"So what the hell's he doing here?" He said, turning back to Sam. Who was now focused on Cas.

"Well, it seems that a certain angel put us all back on Earth. Nicely done, Castiel."

Cas clenched his jaw.

"You know, it's too bad about Sam," Lucifer continued, "he was so broken he didn't even think twice about letting me in. Although, it didn't appear he had much of a choice, at least, not after I was done with him."

"You son of a bitch, what did you do to him?" Dean demanded, advancing towards him. Cas gripped his shoulder in restraint.

"Nothing you haven't done before. When it comes to torture I'm afraid my imagination isn't as good as yours. Although I did include a few surprises of my own," He replied.

"Where's Michael?" Cas growled, glowering.

"Oh Michael's long gone," said Lucifer, flashing a smile, "He's always been a bit gullible. Swallowed my 'let's be brothers again' act right up."

Dean didn't let Lucifer taunt him. Getting Sam back was at the top of his priorities, not listening to this dickhead.

"Where's Sam?"

"He's in here somewhere. Tucked away in an alternate reality of pain and misery. Not unlike this one don't you think? I'm not as sympathetic as your friend Gadreel."

Dean stopped short. Taken aback.

"How do you know about that?"

"I've gotten to know lots of things since my return, particularly about our dear little Sammy. I was just waiting for him to break."

Dean paused, confused. He might have heard wrong.

"What do you-"

"I'm sorry," said Lucifer, cutting him off, "I believe my time here is up."

He gave a little wave, and sported a smug smile.

"Toodles."

He vanished.

Dean sighed before kicking the nearest thing to him. Which happened to be a small, black garbage can. He would have dismissed the mess he made, if something hadn't caught his eye. A flash of red. He knelt down and peered at the disarray.

Sticking to the bottom of the garbage can were clumps of bloody, dry paper towels. What fell out on the floor was a rust-colored knife and a stained plaid shirt.

Dean stood up slowly, a million things going through his mind. How could he have not noticed this before? Sure, Sam had dealt with a lot of crap in the past, but at some point or another he had always shared it with Dean. It hurt him that his brother had been hurting, and he had known nothing about it.

"Okay, before I even _begin _to mention everything else that's going on here. I want to know how Lucifer managed to possess, uh, Sam's body."

"Same way an angel can possess any living one," Cas said, "all he needed was permission from Sam's soul. Lucifer must have gotten it when Sam went to hell."

"Okay, well, how did he get to Sam when he was brought back to Earth?"

"As angels can return to Heaven when they are called or when they please, so can demons, only with Hell. Lucifer must have tortured him there."

Dean sighed and sat down on the bed, Cas leaned against the wall. Both were stressed and exasperated.

"I, uh, didn't know," Cas said, staring at the bloody mess around them.

"Yeah, me neither."

/

"Isn't there a way to, I don't know, expel him?"

Dean and Cas were in the bunker, hunched over piles of books. Cas didn't need to search for anything that might be useful for them to help Sam, he knew there was no hope. But he skimmed them anyway, thinking it would make Dean feel better.

"If you're talking about an exorcism, I know of none," Cas said.

"Right, and the only way we could look for one is through the angel tablet, which we don't have, along with..." Dean trailed off. Cas didn't need to ask to know he was referring to Kevin.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"No, it's alright, it wasn't your fault," Dean said, as he stood up from his chair, running a hand through his hair.

Cas tilted his head inquisitively.

"We could reason with him," He said. Dean turned to face him.

"With Lucifer?"

"No, with Sam."

He leaned back and thought about that. Sam was stubborn when he got lonely and depressed, but if anyone could crack him, it was Dean.

"Great," he said, "now all we have to do is trap the devil."

**DEAN SAID, AS HE STOOD UP FROM HIS CHAIR, RUNNING A HAND THROUGH HIS HAIR, IN THE STUFFY AIR, WITH SUCH CARE, WAY DOWN THERE...**


	4. Chapter 4

**FORGIVE ME FOR ANY MISTAKES YOU MAY FIND, IT'S THREE IN THE MORNING. **

Dean's hopes were lessening pretty fast. After countless hours of hacking security cameras and Cas searching for any sign of Lucifer, nothing was coming to the surface. Despite all their searching, Dean just couldn't focus. What Lucifer had said to him was all he could think about. What did he mean when he said he was waiting for Sam to break? Dean hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, besides Sam's usual brooding, in the previous weeks. But as he continued to think, the bloody contents of the garbage came to mind. It could have been from a hunt, he supposed, but it looked too recent. Dean couldn't recall Sam injuring himself that bad with any hunts they had just been on. There were so many questioned running through Dean's mind it was starting to give himself a headache. What frustrated him most though, was that the only person he could get answers from was being possessed by the devil.

Sam had been stuck with Lucifer and Micheal in the cage for a year and half, although it had seemed like an eternity to Dean. Not counting the soulless version of his brother. But the knowledge of what went on there brought Sam hallucinations and torment. Now he was being possessed by the very entity that tortured his soul, practically skinned it alive. Dean made a mental note to himself to be nicer to the kid when he got back.

And he was going to come back. Dean would make damn sure of that.

With no further leads and nothing to do, he prayed. The flutter of wings sounded from behind.

"You called?" Cas said. Dean shuffled his feet.

"Yeah, uh, you got anything?"

"Not as of yet. Lucifer is...very keen on keeping himself disguised."

Dean sighed. He could have really used Frank's help about now, or Charlie's. A somber expression crossed overtook his features as he thought about his past friends.

"We'll find him, Dean," Cas said, misinterpreting the slump of Dean's shoulders.

"Right, yeah," Dean responded. Turning away and leaning against the table. When he turned around again, Cas was gone.

He reappeared a moment later.

Without a word, he strode up to Dean and placed two fingeres on his forehead. Suddenly they weren't in the bunker anymore, but in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

"Where are we?" Dean questioned, looked around for any clues that might give away the location of his surroundings. Cas didn't reply, he stood in one spot, focusing on something in his line of vision. Dean searched for whatever was holding his attention. He found it almost immediately.

"It's-" He started to say. Cas put a hand on his chest, preventing him form moving forward.

"I know," Cas said. No further explanation was given.

Up and across the street, visibly towering over the rest of the crowd, was Sam. Or rather, Lucifer.

"So, aren't we going to go get him?" Dean's patience was wearing thin, he was ready for action.

"It's not that simple."

When Cas didn't elaborate, Dean began to pace the sidewalk, not trying very to hard to avoid running into hurried pedestrians.

"He's here to meet someone,"Cas said, taking the opportunity to peal his eyes away and face Dean, "but they've hidden themselves."

"Dude," Dean said, taking notice of the surrounding buildings and signs, "are we in Chicago?"

Once again, Cas didn't answer. Presumably returning his focus to Lucifer. A previous conversation with Death came to mind about their location, apparently the pizza here was not only good enough to capture Death's attention, but get on angel radar as well.

Before them, Lucifer began to make his way towards a small alley between two buildings, effectively concealing the identity of whoever he was to converse with.

Cas motioned Dean to follow him as they ducked into a nearby pastry shop. No one noticed as they sat at one of the small tables in the back. Once sitting, Cas placed both hands on either side of his head at his temples, leaning forward on his elbows.

"Can you hear anything?" Dean asked. Cas closed his eyes and grunted. Taking that as a no, Dean sat back in his chair and folded his arms, prepared to wait. But it was then that he took fully into account of where they were. Feeling lucky with a twenty dollar bill in his pocket, he drifted towards the pie.

When he returned with the slice of his choice, he found Cas in the exact same position as when he'd left him. Dean snapped his fingers a couple times, confirming Cas's utter concentration and focus, before digging in.

Cas' features remained expressionless as Dean continued to devour his beloved pastry, and even long after it was gone, Cas remained the same.

That was, until now.

Cas straightened up and immediately reached for Dean, no doubt with intentions of making a quick getaway. But before Dean could react, a hand placed itself on Cas' shoudler, and he was gone. Dean looked upwards to find Lucifer and Metetron staring back at him. The last thing he saw was the Sam's calloused hand reaching toward him.

/

It seemed only seconds later that he found himself next to Cas, both were hanging in chains on against a wall.

"Where are we?" Dean asked. Cas sighed and fidgeted.

"Hell," He said. Gazing around at the vicinity, Dean knew he was being literal. He continued to have a peer around at the sights in front of him. Although it wasn't completely dark, Dean blinked rapidly, adjusting to the suddenly dimmer lighting. A man-sized lump not too far away from them caught his attention.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, maybe he was wrong, it could have been a pile of chains and whips he was yelling at, or whatever the hell they kept for storage down here. But before he could make a decision, a loud squeaking sound filled the room. A bright light filled the room, momentarily blinding him. As far as the darkness went, he had been able to see Cas next to him and determine vague facts about their location. Chains, concrete walls, it hadn't been hard to believe Cas when he said that they were in Hell.

"Well hello!" Came a booming voice, one Dean instantly recognized. Following the squeaking sound from earlier came a loud resonance. Exactly like a door being opened and closed. But as Dean looked around the medium sized concrete room, he didn't see any. Now the figure walking up to them held his attention.

"How are we today?"

Neither Dean nor Cas responded as the previous vessel of Lucifer strode up to them, megaphone in hand.

"Not very enthusiastic huh?" He said, meandering his way around the room. Looking beyond him, Dean found the broken form of Sam, laying against the wall where Dean had been calling out to earlier.

"Sam!" He shouted. Sam didn't stir.

"You can scream all you want, he's not going to wake. Do you know where you are?"

Dean ignored Lucifer's commentary, focusing on Sam. Sam's chestnut brown hair covered most of his face, although blood was visibly dripped down the side of his neck. The rest of him didn't look any better.

"Hell," Dean heard Cas say, who had answered Lucifer's inquiry. Uncertainty laced the word.

"No," said Lucfer smugly, "but that's a good guess."

"Alright then you son of a bitch, where are we?" Lucifer paused before answering, perhaps debating whether or not he should let them know.

"Sam's mind," He said. There was no trace of the earlier smugness. Instead, he folded his arms and stood with a serious expression on his face. Dean recognized the look and posture, he saw it often, from Sam.

"So, what? You're just some hallucination in Sam's head?" Dean questioned.

"Not exactly, I am possessing him, remember. I get to see what it's like in this pretty noggin of his," Lucifer unfolded his arms, choosing to rest his hands on his hips, as he wandered slowly about the room, "I gotta say, it't not very fun."

Dean took in the scene around him once more, with the realization that where he was at that moment, chained against a wall in some hellish dungeon, was how Sam felt all the time. And Sam had never said anything to him about it.


End file.
